Stories for March 20, 2013

Radioactive material has been discovered at Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach as crews worked to excavate and remove toxic soil, Navy Facilities Engineering Command Southwest announced Wednesday.

A bill that could help some unemployed Californians start their own businesses has cleared its first hurdle in the state legislature. As Marianne Russ reports from Sacramento, an Assembly committee approved the measure Wednesday.

Vice President Biden told All Things Considered co-host Melissa Block in an interview Wednesday that he and the Obama administration plan to continue to fight for a ban on assault weapons to be included in a larger bill in Congress.

If you're a vehicle owner and happen to have a car accident in the near future (we hope you don't), it's likely the crash details will be recorded. Automotive "black boxes" are now built into more than 90 percent of new cars, and the government is considering making them mandatory.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- In a move that is raising concern about limiting access to public documents, California courts could charge $10 for each record search under a proposal included in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget.

June Owino, who hails from Kenya, is a gregarious man who loves telling stories and making people laugh. He arrived in San Diego in 2001, with the idea that he would find work as an accountant, which is his area of expertise. But when the downturn in the economy came and he found himself without a job, he began to look around to figure out what else he could do.

Residents of the small, tight-knit town of Hawthorne, Nevada are mourning the loss of seven Marines killed there in a training exercise accident Monday night. The Pentagon has since suspended the use of 60mm mortar rounds, believed to be a factor in the accident, until an investigation is completed.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to push for changes to formulas used by the federal government to determine funding levels for local homeless programs around the country.

OCEANSIDE (CNS) - Three young men and a juvenile were arrested in connection with a possibly gang-related shooting at an Oceanside park earlier this month that left a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy dead and two other teens wounded, a police lieutenant said today.

Calling the U.S. Israel's "greatest friend," President Barack Obama assured the Middle East ally of his administration's commitment to Israel's security while cautioning that the region's "winds of change bring both promise and peril."

Republicans in the California legislature are criticizing Governor Jerry Brown’s shift of prisoners from the state to counties – and putting forth legislation they say would help reduce the risk to public safety.

Basketball fans have one more day to fill out their March Madness brackets. They'll need to predict not just the champions and their route to victory, but also the paths of all the losers. It's not easy. In fact, no person or computer has yet been able to do it.

Ever since the Newtown Connecticut school shooting, there's been a raging debate over how to keep America's school children safe. National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre proposed stationing an armed guard in every school in the country. Critics said that idea was impractical and would be too expensive to carry out.